Welcome from the Chair

I am pleased to announce that the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Geosciences (IECG 2019) will be held online from 8 to 15 June 2019. This electronic conference offers a forum for researchers engaged in the study of all interdisciplinary aspects of the earth and planetary sciences to present their research and exchange ideas with their colleagues. This online conference will allow you to participate without having to leave home, saving you time, travel and participation expenses while at the same time gaining new information on current research in geosciences.

This is a virtual conference held at www.sciforum.net/. Sciforum.net is a platform developed and sponsored by MDPI to organize electronic conferences and to provide our community with technical support for hosting digital conferences.

Participation is free of charge for both authors and attendees. Selected papers will be published in the Special Issue "Selected Papers from the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Geosciences" in Geosciences. Geosciences (ISSN 2076-3263) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal of geoscience and future earth and planetary science, published monthly online by MDPI. It is covered by some important databases, such as Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)—Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics), Scopus (Elsevier), GeoRef (American Geosciences Institute), AGORA (FAO), CAS—Chemical Abstracts (ACS) and DOAJ—Directory of Open Access Journals. We have a citescore of 1.97 in Scopus and currently rank Q2 in Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) in SCImago.

I am looking forward to participating in exciting discussions, hearing new ideas and perspectives in the field, and welcoming all participants to the online conference.

Prof. Jesús Martínez Frías, PhD (Complutense University of Madrid/1986) did several stays of research in the UK (University of Leeds), Canada (University of Toronto), Germany (University of Heidelberg) and the USA (University of California). He is Scientific Researcher at the Geosciences Institute, IGEO (CSIC-UCM); Honorific Professor at the Bioengeneering and Aerospace Engineering Department of the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; Head of the Research Group of Meteorites and Planetary Geosciences and founder; and Director of the Spanish Planetology and Astrobiology Network (REDESPA). He has participated in more than 40 projects and scientific campaigns (e.g., Antarctica, Mauritania, Iceland, Costa Rica). In 2002, he participated in the NASA flight to study the Leonid Meteor Shower. He is co-I in NASA-MSL (rover Curiosity), ESA-ExoMars and NASA-Mars2020, and in 2016, 2017 and 2018, he was instructor of ESA astronauts in the PANGAEA program (Lanzarote and Chinijo Islands UNESCO Global Geopark). He has published nine books and more than 200 articles (Science, Nature, Geology, etc.). He was a Former Member of the UN ECOSOC Committee on Natural Resources, Ex-ViceChair of the UNCSTD and Ex-Chair of IUGS-COGE (Commission on Geoscience Education, Training and Technology Transfer). He is an OC Member of the IAU Astrobiology Commission and member of the Inter-Commission C1-F2-F3-H2 WG Education and Training in Astrobiology. Co-founder and President of the International Association for Geoethics (IAGETH). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Geosciences(MDPI) and co-editor of the Springer Book Series: Geoheritage, Geoparks and Geotourism. He has received several awards and recognitions (i.e., NASA, ESA, GSAf (Goodwill Ambassador), ArabGU, Spanish Association of Scientists).

Scholars interested in participating in the conference can submit their abstract (about 200-250 words covering the areas indicated for the Proceedings issue) online on this website until 18 April 2019 .

The Conference Committee will pre-evaluate, on the basis of the submitted abstract, whether a contribution from the authors of the abstract will be accepted for the 2nd International Electronic Conference on Geosciences.

If the abstract is accepted for this conference, the author is asked to submit the manuscript, optionally along with a PowerPoint and/or video presentation of his/her paper (only PDF), until the submission deadline of 25 May 2019.

The conference proceedings papers and presentations will be available online for discussion during the time of the conference 8–15 June 2019. The accepted papers will be published in the Journal Proceedings. After the conference, the authors are recommended to submit an extended version (30-50%) of the proceeding papers to the journal Geosciences, benefiting from a 20% discount on the APC charges.

Proceedings Paper

Manuscripts for the Proceedings issue must have the following organization:

The manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word or any other word processor and should be converted to the PDF format before submission. The publication format will be PDF. The length of the manuscript is maximum 6 pages, and authors are asked to keep their papers as concise as possible.

Presentation Slides

Authors are encouraged to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint or similar software, to be displayed online along with the manuscript. Slides, if available, will be displayed directly in the website using Sciforum.net's proprietary slides viewer. The slides can be prepared in exactly the same way as for any traditional conference where research results can be presented. The slides should be converted to the PDF format before submission so that our process can easily and automatically convert them for online displaying.

Video Presentations

Besides their active participation within the forum, authors are also encouraged to submit video presentations. If you are interested in submitting, please contact the conference secretary Daisy Hu at [email protected] to get to know more about the procedure. This is a unique way of presenting your paper and discuss it with peers from all over the world. Make a difference and join us for this project!

Presentation of Posters

Posters will be available on this conference website during and after the event. As for papers presented in the conference, the participants will be able to ask questions and make comments about the posters. Posters that are submitted without a manuscript will not be included in the Proceedings of the conference.

Submission of Manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.sciforum.net/login by registering and logging in to this website.

Microsoft Word

Authors must use the Microsoft Word template to prepare their manuscript. Using the template file will substantially shorten the time to complete copy-editing and publication of accepted manuscripts. Manuscript prepared in MS Word must be converted into a single file before submission. Please do not insert any graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) into a movable frame which can superimpose the text and make the layout very difficult.

Manuscript Preparation

Paper Format: A4 paper format, the printing area is 17.5 cm x 26.2 cm. The margins should be 1.75 cm on each side of the paper (top, bottom, left, and right sides).

Formatting / Style: Papers should be prepared following the style of IECMS2018 template. The full titles and the cited papers must be given. Reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [4] or [1-3], and all the references should be listed separately and as the last section at the end of the manuscript.

Authors List and Affiliation Format: Authors' full first and last names must be given. Abbreviated middle name can be added. For papers written by various contributors a corresponding author must be designated. The PubMed/MEDLINE format is used for affiliations: complete street address information including city, zip code, state/province, country, and email address should be added. All authors who contributed significantly to the manuscript (including writing a section) should be listed on the first page of the manuscript, below the title of the article. Other parties, who provided only minor contributions, should be listed under Acknowledgments only. A minor contribution might be a discussion with the author, reading through the draft of the manuscript, or performing English corrections.

Figures, Schemes and Tables: Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color. Full color graphics will be published free of charge. Figure and schemes must be numbered (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, etc.) and a explanatory title must be added. Tables should be inserted into the main text, and numbers and titles for all tables supplied. All table columns should have an explanatory heading. Please supply legends for all figures, schemes and tables. The legends should be prepared as a separate paragraph of the main text and placed in the main text before a table, a figure or a scheme.

It is the authors' responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state here "The authors declare no conflict of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Financial support for the study must be fully disclosed under "Acknowledgments" section. It is the authors' responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state here "The authors declare no conflict of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Financial support for the study must be fully disclosed under "Acknowledgments" section.

Copyright

MDPI, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe that authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting a Communication paper to this conference, you retain the copyright of your paper, but you grant MDPI the non-exclusive right to publish this paper online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your paper to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher (if required by that publisher).

Conference Sponsors

Sponsors

A. Statistical Seismology

This section is intended to provide statisticians, seismologists, and geophysicists with an opportunity to present their latest research in the field of the statistical analysis of seismic series. As complex phenomena, earthquakes require the application of different statistical methods to be fully understood. Since earthquakes are processes that evolve in the space-time-magnitude domain, different statistical methods are required to analyse them in each domain. Fractal, multifractal, informational, topological, and non-extensive methods are just some of the most recent methods used to identify the different properties of seismicity.

Papers that focus on the different aspects of the statistical behaviour of earthquakes in time, space, and magnitude, earthquake physics, seismic hazard estimation, and time-dependent earthquake forecasting are welcome.

B. Tracers in Hydrogeology

Hydrogeology investigates how water interacts with geological systems. It also assesses the quality and chemical composition of the surface and groundwater. Solutes represent the net effect of many processes, from the incorporation of precipitation into groundwater recharge, to weathering reactions, and a wide variety of water-rock interactions that have taken place in the aquifer.

Tracers continue to provide an important tool that can contribute to:

a) The determination of the origin of water masses and conditions during formation:

The identification and separation of water components;

The determination of groundwater recharge areas, flow paths, and mixing;

The determination of the origin of contaminants.

b) The determination of the residence time of water in the system ("water age"):

The calculation of flow velocities, assessing mining and dispersion;

The determination of water fluxes, recharge rates, and exchange rates;

The study of the transport and degradation of contaminants.

Papers for this Section include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Submissions

D. Paleontology and Biostratigraphy

Paleontological studies are of major relevance to support the establishment of temporal landmarks on Earth´s history and to reconstruct past environments. The International Chronostratigraphic Chart is being built using the latest results on the taxonomy and evolution of fossils and microfossils, which are subjects of study by paleontologists worldwide, in both academic and industrial settings. However, fossils also attract non-specialized people, representing an important tool to stimulate pupils to deepen their studies in earth sciences, and/or a commercial object that can endanger the paleontological and stratigraphical heritage of the earth. Papers for this section on paleontology and stratigraphy include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

The taxonomy and evolution in the fossil record;

High resolution biostratigraphy and the international chronostratigraphic chart;

E. Planetary Geology and Earth Analogs

The constant improvement of space technologies and payloads, together with the ambitious planetary exploration goals in the foreseeable future—such as human missions to Mars, a permanent station on the Moon surface and detailed investigations of the outer Solar System—have made planetary geology and Earth analogue studies a primary role in space science. Indeed, planetary geologists can now have easy access to spectacular high resolution remotely sensed data on an increasing number of planetary and minor bodies and to remarkable in situ observations and measurements on Mars and the Moon. This continuously provides an impressive amount of data that must be compared to laboratory analyses of analogue samples in order to be fully understood. In addition, studies of Earth analogues are increasingly needed on different kinds of geological environments to evaluate and physically mimic future robotic and human missions to planetary bodies. All these activities cover the full spectrum of Geosciences in which covers countless research themes. This session aims to bring together expertize from any planetary mission science activities involving geological research, laboratory analyses on planetary analogues, studies on Earth analogues characterization and fidelity assessment.

F. Geologic Materials: Past, Present, and Future

The use of geological objects for the preparation of tools is one of the hallmarks of the rising of the Homo genus. Geologic materials have been applied in diverse ways throughout history, and they surely will play an important role in the future of humankind. Although it is firmly grounded in geology, this session is also open to receiving relevant submissions with valuable contributions from a great diversity of other study domains such as archaeology, architecture, biology, chemistry, economy, engineering, environmental studies, geography, history, land management, mathematics, medicine, philosophy, physics, psychology, sociology, statistics, tourism, and all others that can complement and further geological studies.

Some potential subjects include the following:

Techniques for the characterization of geologic materials both in the field and in the laboratory, with special attention to non-destructive procedures;

The relationship between physical and chemical properties and petrographic characteristics (mineralogy, texture, and structure);

The relationship between materials utilization and their physical and chemical characteristics;

Submissions

G. Modeling Hazards and Impacts from Extreme Storms

Significant costs and damages associated with recent extreme weather across the globe continue to remind communities of their vulnerability to natural hazards. This session will highlight recent advancements in models and techniques focusing on the prediction of the fundamental processes underlying weather disasters and their impacts that typically evolve over multiple temporal and spatial scales. An improved understanding of the hazards associated with extreme weather and modeling tools will provide practitioners with actionable information to better prepare communities for future risks. Contributions are solicited on various hazard and impact modeling approaches including those that are numerical, statistical, or empirical in nature. Presentations may include method development leading to improved predictability of extreme weather events, new applications of existing modeling tools, and case studies. We also invite contributions describing innovative visualization methods, including 3D visualizations of infrastructure and objects such as buildings and bridges, for more effective hazard risk assessment and communication.